


From These Iron Bands Set Free

by busaikko



Category: Songcatcher (2000)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily begins a correspondence and extends an invitation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From These Iron Bands Set Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slightlykylie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlykylie/gifts).



> The title and quoted lyrics are taken from a version of the ballad Lord Bateman (http://www.loc.gov/folklife/LP/AFS_L57ChildBallads.pdf).

~o°*'*°o~

Kind miss, I have fine houses in London  
And I have money of a fine degree  
I'll give my land and all my living  
Fron these iron bands to be set free.

~o°*'*°o~

> My Dear Miss Tolliver:
> 
> Perhaps the first thing you should know about me is that I haven't a romantic bone in my body. I have never considered this a handicap. As a woman pursuing my studies and my position in the university this was to my advantage. The only regret I have is that perhaps the sentiment – the passion, if you will – of the music I love will always elude me. However, in my own life I desire neither sentiment nor passion and am content.
> 
> So I do not want you thinking that I have any motivation besides a desire to continue our acquaintance in writing. You should come and visit. I think of you every time there is talk of the coal mines; that is in fact how I found you, through your writings in certain journals and correspondence with your editors. I imagine you must be wearied with travel and campaigning, and New England in the winter is dismal. The mountains here are unchanged, for the most part. I visit Elna, or she comes to stay with me, at least once a month. She is well, though I suspect the feelings I lack she has double. I did not tell her I'm writing to you.
> 
> I wish you good health and best wishes for the New Year.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Lily Penlaric  
> 

~o°*'*°o~

> My Dear Miss Tolliver:
> 
> As you can see by the return address, Elna and I are now keeping house in Virginia, where I am teaching at the college here, which is establishing a center for the study of the arts and music of the Appalachians. I am still working with Dr Whittle to collect and publish songs – appallingly, no one has even considered starting a scientific survey in the Virginias until now – and with Tom Bledsoe at the recording studio we opened in Asheville; but for myself, the older I grow, the more I am dissatisfied with the idea that I will be remembered as an assistant, an associate, or a wife – someone whose life was remarkable insofar only as it found orbit around a man.
> 
> However, I doubtless would not have considered uprooting my life once again had there not been talk of finding Elna a suitable husband – Tom is in no ways, according to most, suitable, which suits me perfectly well; I do not wish to marry before attaining a position as full professor, and he says he's more inclined to a long engagement than marriage, anyway. But there was a clergyman who was considered a good candidate by friends here – well-educated, soft-spoken, soft as well around the middle with a full-moon face – and you know, Elna would have married him. That is, after all, what young women do.
> 
> So we ran away. Or at least, I walked into the office of the college President with letters of recommendation from Dr Whittle, Dr Aldrich, and Dean Pembroke and copies of my book, and demanded employment. They have shunted me off to the arts and music center, but I mean to make of it a success. That settled, I put out word that Elna had suffered a collapse from nervous exhaustion – the exhaustion at least was true; you know how tirelessly she expends herself – and needed quiet rest and frequent visits to the warm sulfur springs. So now we have a cottage of our own and a yard that falls down into a ravine in back. We miss Delaidis, but you know she had to stay in Asheville for her studies, as she is determined to become a teacher herself. 
> 
> Our cottage is just outside of town and we can see the mountains from all the back windows. Now that we are in summer, our porch is visited by hummingbirds, though you're more likely to hear the whirr of their wings than see them in flight. We have grapevines, but have not yet learned how to get to the grapes before the deer do. You should come and visit.
> 
> I have over the past year or so of our correspondence noted that you prefer – as I do – discussing facts to feelings, and ideas to emotions, and additionally have the perverse ability to assume that the most innocent statements are veiled accusations, which I can only assume is because you yourself feel guilty. If that's so, good. You broke my sister's heart, and she's still haunted. Again, you should come and visit. When I read your bread-and-butter replies out loud, Elna hangs on every word: the tedious lists of places you have traveled, people you met, what the labor unions' next moves will be. It would have meant the world to her if even once you had said that you missed her.
> 
> Which is to say, a visit to our house will probably be the most uncomfortable experience of your life. But simply because something will be hard, is no reason not to do it.
> 
> Sincerely yours,
> 
> Lily Penlaric  
> 

~o°*'*°o~

Elna did not go down with Lily to the train station. She protested that the house still needed cleaning, and that _someone_ needed to start work on the supper, and added that she hated riding in Mr Miller's hired wagon. Lily had been impatient – Lily often was; Penlerics were known for their hard-headedness – but had finally thrown her hands up in irritation and set out alone.

As soon as Lily was out of sight Elna realized that she'd trapped herself at home, waiting, like a dutiful child. She tied on her apron and set to sweeping the stairs and the floors for the very last speck of dirt, brushing it all out the open front door onto the porch, where the boards were spaced widely enough that it fell through the cracks. She swept the porch anyway, and straightened her chair and Lily's chair, and eyed the trumpet creeper, which probably needed cutting back, no matter how pretty the flowers were.

She went to hang the broom up on its peg, rinsed her hands, and set about preparing the soup. Everything got chopped resentfully, as she wished she'd had the nerve to tell Lily _no_ , that Harriet couldn't stay with them. She entertained a fantasy of taking the horse from the wagon when it pulled up and riding over the Cumberland Gap out into the great beyond. Of finding a new place, her own place, where every day was rich with anticipation and she was welcome.

Her story faltered there, as she tried to imagine what she would _do_. Did she want to teach again? Work with children and women in the community? Study medicine, perhaps, and be a traveling doctor, or go all the way to California and find gold. She lifted the cutting board to push the minced vegetables into the boiling water and set a lid on the pot. Be cook and housekeeper for her sister for the rest of her life, more likely, and that made Elna _furious_.

After all, _she'd_ been the first one to walk up into the mountains, to struggle with distrust and to earn acceptance. She'd made the school successful despite everyone's misgivings, and she'd gone into Asheville to raise funds and lecture to the missionary boards and ladies' societies. She'd been scared but far too stubborn not to represent her own work. She'd spoken passionately about the value of a good education, and her conviction had brought Harriet back to see for herself what could be wrought in the wilderness. Neither of them had realized that the wilderness was working its ways on them as well, until the music of the mountain shade had built an architecture of respect and love and passion. It had been beautiful, until it burned.

She wiped down the kitchen with efficiently angry swipes of the cloth and was considering going out past the kitchen garden to steal ripe cherries from the birds when she heard voices and the creak of boards. Lily and Harriet spoke with animation and familiarity, making Elna's heart twist even though she couldn't catch the words. She'd worked hard not to be envious of their correspondence, of every article Harriet published and every university meeting Lily returned from flush with success, but... oh, it was hard. To be left behind, and lost, and unable to see her way forward.

She held onto her anger to keep from drowning, and went back out to the porch to greet them. Lily gave Elna a chafing, sisterly look, chin down and eyes knowing, and then bustled past her, directing Mr Miller to carry the bags up to the room at the head of the stairs. Normally Elna's room, but it had been cleared out for use as a guest room. Elna was left standing awkwardly, hands twisting her apron as Harriet looked up at her and saw – everything, most likely.

"So this is our house," Elna said, trying to build distance. "It's quiet here. Though not so far from town."

"The ride from the station was pleasant." Harriet's hand drifted up to her glasses, askew as always, and then she caught herself and folded her hands together tightly. "I thought you were closer to the mountains. I hadn't expected it to be so bright. I remember... in some places the day was cut short by the mountain's shadows."

"Yes," Elna said. She didn't mean to, but her eyes made an inventory anyway, of a shirtwaist and skirt bedraggled and creased from travel, of the way Harriet's hair stuck to her forehead and neck, of the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She wished... but then, what good had that ever done anyone? Her sister had a hundred love songs that all ended badly, and they'd been passed down for centuries because they spoke a truth. There was love, and then there was life. "You must be tired," she went on, searching for words that wouldn't betray her worse than her gaze had. "Will you have something to drink?"

"Please," Harriet said. "If it wouldn't be a bother."

Elna shook her head, and led Harriet in to the table. She had cool mint tea in the kettle, and she poured it into three cups. The house reverberated with the tread of heavy boots down the stairs again, and she heard Lily seeing Mr Miller off, telling him to give her regards to Mrs Miller and the children. Harriet sipped her tea slowly, some of the tension leaving her posture, only to be replaced by a weary sag.

"There you are," Lily said, striding into view. "My goodness, you wouldn't believe who we ran into – " and she seemed oblivious to the strain in the room as she dragged Harriet into recounting the anecdote, while tying on her own pinafore. As the conversation wandered, from university acquaintances to the summer heat to conditions in the coal mines, Elna found herself tasked with setting the table while Lily brought out the soup and the bread, and soon both the meal and the tidying up was done.

"How long will you be staying?" Lily asked, showing Harriet to the front room, where she kept her instruments and work desk, what she called her laboratory.

"I wouldn't want to impose," Harriet said, and Lily laughed, protesting that she'd invited her, after all. "A few weeks. A month, perhaps."

"Then you must come with me to hear some of the local music as it is performed," Lily insisted, with her blunt inability to see that not everyone shared her passions.

Harriet murmured her thanks, and asked whether Lily could play any of the instruments displayed on the wall, her fingers light as she brushed over the inlay on the body of a mountain dulcimer. Elna settled into her chair, training her eyes on her sewing, and prayed that the days flew by fast.

~o°*'*°o~

Seven long years I'll make this promise  
Seven long years and here's my hand  
If you will marry no other lady  
It's I will marry no other man.

~o°*'*°o~

As she'd promised, Lily brought Harriet to the university to meet with those there who were interested in labor laws and the protection of workers and their families from the greed of companies and factories. Elna joined them occasionally; she refused to let Harriet's presence keep her away from her friends. They took a trip up into the mountains, to visit the sulfur springs and be drafted into carrying recording equipment halfway up a mountainside. By the time they returned home from this excursion, Elna was so worn out that she went to bed without eating, and slept straight through til midmorning.

The house was silent when she made her way downstairs, hair down and feet bare, yawning and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She found a bowl of boiled eggs under a cloth on the table, and was reaching for one when the kitchen door opened.

Elna startled and cried out, turning so quickly she upset the bowl. Harriet in the doorway looked just as surprised, eyes wide.

"Oh, dear," she said, and darted forward, catching all but two of the eggs before they rolled to the floor. "I'm sorry..."

Elna bent to collect the cracked eggs. "It's fine. I didn't – I thought I was alone."

"We didn't want to wake you," Harriet explained. She put the eggs back and began taking her harvest out of her tucked-up apron, setting on the sideboard an array of greens, beans, cherries, and tomatoes, smelling sun-warm ripe. "Lily's gone in to the university, but I don't want to interfere with her work more than I already have."

"You're tired of hearing the old songs," Elna suggested, teasing gently, as she got a dish and set about peeling her eggs.

Harriet gave her a wry smile. "You know I'm not a very musical person."

Elna did know, but now it seemed like too much of an intimacy to recall. 

Harriet took out a knife, and soon they had a plate of sliced tomatoes and quartered eggs to share between them, as cozy as they'd been in the old days.

"I have been wanting to talk to you alone," Harriet said, sitting straight, hands folded still on the table before her even as her bright gaze darted away from Elna to the window, as if ashamed. "I wanted to say I was sorry," she said, raising her chin. "I have never wanted to hurt you. Either now or then. If you wish me to go I will. You don't like having me in your home."

Elna felt her face pinch like she'd bitten into a sour plum and set her fork down. She hated arguing; it made her tired, right down to her bones. "You should have _taken me with you_ ," she said, making the words as clear as she could. "Unless you think that I needed the strong medicine of being punished every day, judged by everyone I knew for my – for what we did?"

Harriet's shoulders went back and she pushed her glasses up, even though she still couldn't meet Elna's eyes. "You're young," she said. "You don't need – you have a future."

Elna bit back the urge to singsong those words back like a child. "A future?" She waved her hand around at the kitchen, the house, the yard. "This future? It doesn't suit me."

Harriet sighed and then reached her hand out, palm up, like a supplicant. Elna was torn and tempted, and Harriet waited for her. In the end the patient quiet yearning she saw on Harriet's face allowed Elna to set her anger aside. She still had words she needed to say, bottled up for so long, but she wanted to touch and be touched, she wanted to feel the joy she had had, loving and being loved.

She wove their fingers together, ran her thumb in an arc over the back of Harriet's hand, the ink smudge there and the brown scattering of freckles from too much time spent in the sun. Harriet's fingers were short and blunt; Elna had always loved watching them, never stilling in their work unless she held them down.

"The queer thing about my sister," Elna said, studying the way her fingers and Harriet's intertwined, "is how she would never, ever condone a falsehood in her work – she'd sooner give up music forever than say a song was collected in a place five miles away, or change a transcription even a little bit to make the tune more pleasing. Many people think that makes her cold."

"Because a woman should prefer kindness to truth." Harriet nodded, the light glinting off the rims of her spectacles. "Yes."

"But it makes her a very good liar, because when she _is_ dishonest, no one suspects her at all."

Harriet cocked her head, and another wisp of hair escaped her badly-pinned bun. "Are you saying that she's been lying to me?"

Elna drew in a breath, then let it out. "If she's told you that I can't live without you – that's not so. If she said I'd welcome you..."

"She said seeing you again would be the most uncomfortable experience of my life," Harriet said dryly. "I think she wanted you to rage at me."

"I don't rage," Elna said, though the idea was more tempting than it ought to be. She imagined telling Harriet about the times she'd cried herself to sleep in the bed that had been theirs, or how she'd been scared to walk alone for months, jumping at every rustle of leaves, more fearful of the people she knew than of strangers. She was sure it would feel good to throw that in Harriet's face. Make her cry and beg for Elna's forgiveness, perhaps.

"You should see the look on your face," Harriet said, a longing look on her face. Elna thought that before, Harriet would have touched her – brush a finger over Elna's lips, cup her cheek – not be stilled and restrained. "Fierce."

Elna liked that: she wanted to be fierce, someone to be reckoned with. "I had to learn to live without you."

Harriet's fingers tightened. "I know you did."

"I was scared and lost. I still am. I hated Lily for writing to you, and you for writing back, and I was so – oh, you cannot imagine the weight of fear it took from me to know you were well, you cannot...."

Harriet stood quickly and put her arm around Elna's shoulders, pulling her into an embrace, her cheek nesting against her hair. "My wonderful girl," she said, voice muffled. "My dear. I am so sorry, I'm sorry."

Elna leaned her head against Harriet's bosom and fancied she could hear the strong beat of her heart. "Come away with me," she said. "Lily will be fine without me, but I have to follow my calling or I'll drown here. We'll go together, I don't know where, but I want – I want my life with you."

Harriet gave the ghost of a laugh. "It won't be easy." But when Elna stirred, readying her protests, Harriet caught at her, holding her close. "Yes, I will go with you."

"Good." Elna rose, turning in Harriet's arms. "I missed holding you. Kissing you," she murmured, tilting her head in question.

"Yes," Harriet answered, and then leaned in to brush her mouth over Elna's, so much like that first kiss, years ago, when they'd been timid with each other. Feeling the same hesitance now was strange, and made Elna want to sweep it away like cobwebs. She reached up and slid her fingers into Harriet's hair, tipping her head back for a deeper kiss, one that spoke of her longing and her desire. Harriet met her in passion, coming up on her toes, holding Elna's waist to hers, and Elna let her eyes close, needing nothing more. Finally, Harriet pulled back with a flurry of butterfly-light kisses across Elna's cheeks. "Not here, in the kitchen."

"No," Elna agreed, and caught up Harriet's hand again, tugging her towards the stairs.

In Elna's room she turned the key while Harriet drew the drapes, and then they were together again as if they'd never parted, clothes tossed carelessly over the chair and the foot of the bed, skin pressed to skin, moving together until they found mutual delight with each others' fingers and mouths. Elna dozed afterward, hand curling under the swell of Harriet's breast, head pillowed on the warmth of her stomach.

Harriet's fingers stroked over her hair, and Elna could hear her soft voice repeating like a benediction: "My girl, my sweetest, dearest girl."

~o°*'*°o~

She said for you to send her a slice of bread  
And a bottle of your wine so strong  
And to ask you if you remembered the lady  
That set you free from prison strong.

~o°*'*°o~

>   
>  Darling Lily:
> 
> We are here and settled, more or less – the trip was a test in endurance, but oh, if you could see the sorry state the school is in after having been disused for so long. I have got my work cut out for me. Harriet will be writing for the local newspaper, so we hope to have community support for our efforts. Thank you for the copies of your book. I'm afraid most of the songs are not appropriate for children: far too much murder and scandal for their delicate souls. (If you could hear the things that come out of their mouths as it is – Harriet tells me she knows when a child's been cursing a blue streak because I come home with a new white hair.) Perhaps you could do a study of counting-out and skipping rhymes next – for all you know, some of those might date back to ancient times, wouldn't that be a discovery? We have attempted the songs about the yonder tree and the frog going courting, but I'm sure you'd find our vowels lacking.
> 
> Harriet says hello and hopes that you are well. She's sorry she didn't get a chance to see Tom while she was visiting, but maybe if you and he ever want to travel over the mountains, you could stay with us. Though we've only the two rooms, so someone would have to sleep under the table, I suppose.
> 
> I hope that you are doing well and not going song-collecting up in the mountains in the winter. Did Dr Whittle ever make his promised visit to your music center? Have you and Tom decided yet whether you plan on marrying before the next decade starts? How is Deladis progressing with her studies? Do let us know! We miss you. Harriet tells me you don't believe yourself a romantic, but I think you may be. I promise not to tell anyone, though.
> 
> Devoutly, your sister,
> 
> Elna  
> 


End file.
